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Power and influence in the environment of family therapy

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Abstract

This paper explores some of the ways in which family therapy theory and practice limits an appreciation of the contexts of families and family therapists. It focuses particularly upon how the rules which underline patterns of relationships in social systems are made and maintained more by one part of a system than by another, and considers this (a) within families, (b) within various aspects of the social environment of families, and (c) within the organizational contexts of family therapists. It then proposes that the systemic thinking which family therapists apply to families is potentially applicable to wider contexts including international relationships.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Applied Social Studies, University of Bristol, 11 Priory Road, BS8 1TU, Bristol, England

    Philip Kingston (Professor)

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  1. Philip Kingston
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Additional information

This paper is a revised version of an address to the opening plenary of the Annual Conference of the Association for Family Therapy, at York in September 1981, given under the title “Family Therapy or Systems' Problem Solving?”

Reprinted with permission from theJournal of Family Therapy, Vol. 4, No. 3, 1982, pp. 211–227.

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Kingston, P. Power and influence in the environment of family therapy. International Journal of Family Therapy 5, 209–226 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00927092

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00927092

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